Toys Out of the Nursery
by Matrix Refugee
Summary: The back story on the NannyMecha who comforts David.
1. Cherished

+J.M.J.+

Toys out of the Nursery

By "Matrix Refugee"

Author's Note:

I am "trying" take a breather from those lascivious Joe fictions I've been writing…I doubt this has been done before; it is very, very sentimental so, as usual, read at your own risk. However, I did crossbreed the plot with some drastically changed elements from Spielberg's earlier effort, _Schindler's List_ (specifically, Helena Hirsch's sufferings at the hands of Amon Goeth), which makes this in some ways a darker story than it could have been. I also borrowed somewhat from Isaac Asimov's short story "Robbie", about a little girl and her robot friend, which Asimov himself described as a "robot-as-pathos" story.

Disclaimer:

I do not own "A.I.", its characters, concepts, imagery, settings, dialogue, or other indicia, which are the property of the late, great Stanley Kubrick, of DreamWorks SKG, the living, great Steven Spielberg, Warner Brothers, et al.

I

Cherished

"Maddy will be just as well off as if you were taking care of her yourself," assured Carrick, the saleswoman from Serve US. "Babette was built specific to her task and programmed for and with care."

Artemesia Grachek shook her head in mingled despair and delight. "I don't know if I should; she's just a machine, like all the rest of them."

"But she is no ordinary machine: she was meant to be a child's companion and guardian."

The two women sat in Artemesia's drawing room. A third female figure, clad in a flowing white cotton dress stood beside Ms. Carrick's chair, short and a trifle matronly in a pretty, shapely way, with a soft peaches-and-cream complexion and cornflower-blue eyes, her perfectly symmetrical oval face framed with masses of chestnut-brown hair tied back with a white ribbon. A delicate smile curved her coral-pink lips, almost—_almost_—eclipsing the slight vacancy in her eyes.

Artemesia stared up at the stranger in her house. "I don't know, I'd almost sooner put Maddy in the State daycare than leave her with this."

"Is Maddy boy or girl?" the figure in white asked, her voice a sweet, almost sugary alto.

Artemesia jumped and looked first at the figure, then at Ms. Carrick. "Did…she…just say that?!"

"Ask her for yourself," Ms. Carrick replied, eyes twinkling.

Artemesia turned to the figure. "Babette, did you just speak to me?"

"Yes."

"What did you say?"

"Is Maddy boy or girl?"

"A girl."

"Ah, how old is she?"

"She's just four years old."

"_Une petite fils_, yes? How sweet!"

Artemesia turned back to Ms. Carrick. "I don't know. Now that I'm thinking about it, I don't know if I can let such…let her into the house."

"The real test is when your little girl meets her. Unless they've learned prejudices from their parents or other sources, most children take well to Mecha nannies."

"I've tried to avoid instilling this prejudice into Maddy; we have a housekeeper Mecha."

"I can't twist your arm. I'm not here to make a hard sell."

Artemesia looked at Babette, into those serene eyes. She imagined Maddy playing with this tranquil creature.

"If something doesn't work, I can return her?" she asked.

"All our Mechas are covered by a full guarantee. We won't make you pay for something that doesn't fit in."

"She can stay; I'll sign the agreement."

Ms. Carrick held out to her the clipboard holding the liabilities documents. Artemesia read them over and signed it. Ms. Carrick separated the sheets, with one copy for Artemesia, and the other for Serve US.

The saleswoman left shortly afterward, leaving Artemesia alone with Babette.

"You can look around the house; Maddy will be home later," Artemesia said.

"_Oui, Madame_. May I know whom else lives in your family?"

"Just my husband, Emil, but he's away much of the time. Oh, and our housekeeper Mecha, Gussie."

She left the Mecha to its own devices as it roamed through the house, taking it in. The only time Artemesia interposed was to lead Babette to the nursery; Emil hated that word, but Artemesia used it when he wasn't around. It was so simpler to say than "Maddy's room"

Though she could easily afford it, Artemesia had bought Maddy very few Supertoys, preferring the simpler, less expensive and less unpredictable things she had had in her own childhood: a wooden set of building blocks, play furniture, dolls and cloth animals. She'd even painted the walls pink with a mauve rug and white trim.

Maddy had her own little suite, with a fair-sized playroom that opened onto a screened porch, a cozy bedroom, her own bathroom. Babette surveyed each room in turn, her hands clasped loosely before her. She did not touch a thing, but her soft gaze seemed to caress all it lit upon. _No,_ Artemesia thought. _I can't humanize her._

The front door chimed. "Wait here," Artemesia said. She went to answer the door.

When Artemesia opened the door, Maddy, with her grandmother's driver following her with the bags, skipped in. Artemesia knelt and hugged her little girl.

"Did you have fun at Grandma's?" Artemesia asked.

"Ooh yes!" Maddy held up a bunch of crinkled flowers of thin cardboard. "See what she showed me to make!"

"Oh, aren't they lovely!" Artemesia said. She braced herself inwardly. She had to tell Maddy. "Come upstairs to your room. I've got a surprise there."

"A good surprise?" Maddy asked.

"A great surprise."

Artemesia took her daughter by the hand and led her up to the nursery.

Babette stood exactly where Artemesia had left her, in the playroom. Maddy stopped on the threshold. She looked up at Artemesia.

"What is it, Mommy?"

"This is Babette; she's going to take care of you when I go back to work. Say hello to Babette."

Maddy clung to Artemesia's hand and shrank back against her legs. Babette stepped forward and knelt down to Maddy's level.

"Hello, little girl. What's your name?"

"Maddy," she replied, eying the stranger with suspicion.

"That is a pretty name for a pretty girl. How old are you?"

"This many." Maddy held up her hand, fingers spread, thumb curled in.

"One-two-three-four. My, you are quite a young lady now, yes?"

Maddy pulled away from her mother. "You talk pretty."

"Thank you."

Artemesia withdrew and left the two to acclimate to each other. Of course the Mecha took to the little girl immediately, obedient to a set of programmed responses to stimuli. But she sounded so natural…

Maddy had a few days to adjust to Babette before Artemesia had to leave her in the Mecha's care. And, in that time, Artemesia could peruse Babette's record.

She was a slightly less recent model, but she had previously served only two other families: first, the Armbrusters, for seven years, then the Nackerts for five years. She had ceased to serve the Armbrusters' daughter when she went away to a boarding school in Switzerland. The Nackerts had let her go only because she was no longer needed following the death of their son. There were no complaints, only good reports, a relief after all the human nannies she had gone through with Maddy.

But still Artemesia's heart sighed at the thought of going back to work at the advertising firm and her having to leave Maddy in the care of a Mecha, but she had no other choice. She couldn't maintain their lifestyle by working part time, and Emil wasn't back yet from the last archaeology expedition. In some ways, as the assistant to the CEO of a company that made Mecha components, she was the real breadwinner of the family. Emil had always been wild and impractical, but that was one reason she had married him: even when he wasn't around, he kept her life from getting too predictable. Sometimes his affinity for scavenging for the fragments of the past seemed at odds with their milieu, what with the World Bank faltering and the world economy roller-coastering in the wake of global changes, sometimes it seemed as if they had no hope for a future generation for whom to preserve the relics of the past.

"Then what are we supposed to fill the museums with? Mecha components?" Emil had objected, but only when he'd been drinking. "Perhaps we're doomed to extinction. Perhaps someday, some other race will be assembling our skeletons, trying to figure out what we were and what made us tick. I'd just like to leave them a time capsule of what we managed to accomplish.

He'd said this as Gussie drew the curtains in the parlor; he eyed the dumpy old simulacrum with a glitter in his eyes perhaps not resulting from the straight bourbon he'd consumed.

Through the days that remained before she returned to work, Artemesia covertly watched her daughter and Babette. At one in the same time, Babette was like a large child and a gentle motherly type. She played tirelessly with Maddy, told her stories with a remarkable naturalness, bathed and dressed the little girl with care. Except for the mildly vacuous look that lingered in her eyes, Babette might have been an émigrée from Bordeaux come to work in the States.

But all good things come to an end, and Artemesia went back to work, confident that Babette could take good care of Maddy.

One day, Maddy lay on a heap of dress up clothes in front of the French windows that opened onto the porch, listening to the rain falling on the trees outside. Babette sat on the rung beside her.

"Babette, why does Mommy have to work?" Maddy asked suddenly.

"She works so she can earn the money to buy you good food and pretty things, ma petite."

Maddy snuggled close to Babette. "I wish she didn't have to go _out_ to work."

"She will be back, princess." Babette gathered Maddy into her lap. Maddy snuggled down in her soft arms as Babette sang to her gently in that warm language Mommy said was "French".

A year passed in peace. Maddy shot up three inches. In the summer, she went with Babette to stay with Aunt Sarah in South Minnesota, but she came back for her fifth birthday. Artemesia tried to make up for the year's absences by having a party for her little girl, her first real party with invitations. Artemesia even relieved Gussie of baking the cake.

That autumn, as the heavier rains fell, Maddy started kindergarten. Artemesia made much of this big step; she took Maddy school shopping and let her pick out some of her new clothes. Once they got home, Maddy ran straight up to the nursery, lugging a big shopping bag, to show off her new dresses to Babette.

First day of school, Artemesia had to leave early on a business trip, so she entrusted to Babette the duty of walking Maddy to school, which wasn't far from the house.

"Madame, I will guide her well and it shall make Mademoiselle Maddy very happy," Babette replied.

The prospect of walking to school with Babette made Maddy forget her dismay that Mommy couldn't walk her to school

Once they reached the school, and once Maddy had been whisked away to her classroom, Babette lingered just inside the front door, waiting for her little charge to return. Time and waiting meant nothing to the little Mecha-woman.

At three, the school bell rang and the children filed out, Maddy spotted Babette exactly where they had parted, and ran to meet her friend.

At the further end of the hallway, one of the teachers spotted the child running toward the quiet figure that stood waiting in the shadows of the entryway. _That's not a Mecha, is it?_ he thought. He'd have to speak to Mrs. Grachek.

When Artemesia came home that evening, Maddy ran to meet her at the door, bursting with news. As soon as her daughter had gushed most of her stories, Artemesia turned to Babette.

"Did Maddy behave today?"

"Yes, Madame, there are not notes from her teacher."

But the next day, Maddy came home with a note from Mr. Vincent:

Mrs. Grachek,

I noticed that Maddy came to school accompanied by a Mecha which lingered in the school entryway. Kindly instruct your Mecha to leave the premises after the first bell and to return at 15.00 pm.

Sincerely, 

[signed]

Jacob Vincent.

_Of all the Luddite nonsense,_ Artemesia thought. There was no explicit school policy on Mechas, so she knew this to had be the teacher's personal prejudice. She tossed the note into the paper shredder.

After a week or two, Maddy came to Artemesia with a simple request.

"Can I take Babette to school for show 'n tell?"

Remembering the note, Artemesia swallowed the affirmative forming on her tongue. "I'm afraid you can't. Your teacher might not like having Babette around."

Maddy's face crinkled with confusion. "But Babette's so nice, he'd like her if he got to know her."

"Some people just don't like Mechas." She bit her tongue. She'd never let on to Maddy what Babette really was.

The confusion nearly tied Maddy's face in a knot. "What's Mecha?"

"Well, Babette isn't a real person like you and I. She didn't grow like you're growing. People built her."

"Like a house?"

"A little like that. She's a little like your dolls, except she can talk and move by herself."

"Oh." Maddy's face untied itself, but a little pucker of concern lingered on her brow.

She went to her playroom, where Babette waited for her. Maddy hesitated, staring up at the soft-eyed being. Was she really only a big doll?

"Babette, are you real?" Maddy asked as her friend came to meet her.

Babette knelt down before the little girl. "You can see me with your eyes, yes?"

"Yes."

"You can put your arms about me and hug me, yes?"

"Yes."

"Your ears can hear my voice when I speak to you, yes?"

"Then I am real."

That was good enough for Maddy. She put her arms around Babette and cuddled her face in the Mecha's bosom. Babette held her gently.

And so it went for a year. From time to time, Mr. Vincent sent home notes to Artemesia about Babette, but nothing came of it, either way.

Summer came. Maddy went to Aunt Sarah's for a month, with Babette. She insisted on bringing the Mecha along, and Artemesia couldn't do otherwise. Sarah, who had lived in Paris for some years, enjoyed having the little Mecha at her house: for a little while at least, she had someone she could carry on a conversation with in French.

Then autumn came; Maddy moved up to first grade: different teachers, different children in the class. Babette still walked Maddy to and from school, still waited patiently in the hallway for the little girl to return.

After a couple weeks, one of Maddy's classmates, Sidney, noticed Babette as school got out. Next day, she asked Maddy about it.

"Is that a nanny-Mecha you come to school with?" Sidney asked at recess.

"Yeah, that's Babette."

"She's Mecha."

"I know."

"Only _babies_ have nanny-Mechas."

"Don't you have one?"

"Yeah, when I was a _baby_. It looks after my little step-sister now; she's two."

That afternoon, after the final bell, Maddy trudged down the hallway, looking over her shoulder to make sure no one took notice of her as she went to meet the quiet, soft figure that waited for her.

"Maddy, what is wrong?" Babette asked, kneeling down to Maddy's level.

"Sidney said only babies have nannies."

"But you know that you are a big girl. Does this Sidney have a nanny?"

"No."

"Then she does not know the fun we have together, no?'

"No," Maddy agreed, smiling again.

They went home together, hand in hand. Maddy put aside Sidney's cruel words.

But it was not enough.

"Baby-talk! Baby-talk! Baby talks with big dolls!" Sidney taunted from across the playground, a few other girls around her as Maddy sat alone, eating her lunch.

"Does that nanny-Mecha change your dipies when you get home?" another girl teased.

"You got jelly on your chin. Want me to get your nanny to wipe it off for you?" twitted a third girl.

Maddy tried to ignore the mocking, but it only continued. She threw down her lunchbox and ran across the yard, her little fists flailing.

The three girls pounced on her and rolled her in a muddy spot in the corner of the yard.

Fortunately the yard monitors saw this happen and rushed in to put a stop to it. They separated Maddy from the combatants. One of them carried Maddy to the nurse's office; the three troublemakers were marched to the school therapist's office.

The nurse and her assistant—whose face reminded her of Babette's—cleaned her up and found her some clean clothes to wear while they ran hers through the wash.

"I want Babette," Maddy murmured, trying not to whimper.

"Who's Babette?" asked the nurse.

"She's my nanny. She's waiting by the front door."

The nurse turned to her assistant. "Go to the front door and see if there's anyone waiting there named Babette. Bring her here."

"Yes, ma'am," the assistant said; she went out, her joints whirring and creaking slightly.

"Now what caused all this?" the nurse asked. "Why did those girls roll you in the mud?"

"You'd laugh at me," Maddy sniffled.

"I wouldn't. I promise."

Maddy looked around and beckoned to the nurse to lean down to her. The nurse obliged her.

"They were laughing at me 'cause I came to school with Babette."

"Well, most girls your age don't usually do that, but you're different. What's Babette like?"

"She's nice. She sings to me and reads me stories, and she talks really pretty."

"I bet you have a lot of fun with her." The nurse glanced toward the door. "I'll let you in on a little secret: I bet those girls who pushed you in the mud really wish they had someone just as nice as Babette waiting for them. And they got you all over mud because they're jealous."

At that point the assistant returned with Babette.

"Ah, _mon pauvre petite enfant_!" Babette cried, kneeling beside Maddy's chair. "Have _les mal filles_, the bad girls hurt you?"

"Mostly inside."

"Come, let me take out the hurt," Babette soothed, holding her.

The principal sent home a message with Babette, which the Mecha-woman innocently passed to Artemesia.

Next morning, Artemesia went with Maddy to school. She walked her daughter in, while Babette stayed behind in the cruiser.

Artemesia saw Maddy into her classroom, and then went to the principal's office.

"I don't really want to have to tell you this: I've seen Maddy with Babette, and I can see how much that little Mecha makes her happy. But I can't let it stay in the school after yesterday's little tussle," the principal, Miss Washford, said.

"Then what are you suggesting?" Artemesia asked.

"It would be better if Babette could be made to understand she has to leave the building after Maddy has gone into the classroom and return for her at 15.00."

"I could tell her that, but how is she—I mean Maddy, of course—going to take this?"

"She has to learn to let go. We all have to go through that passageway at some time or other."

Artemesia returned to her car. Babette sat quietly poised in the back seat, her eyes on the school's main door, as if she watched only for Maddy.

"Babette?"

The little Mecha turned her face to Artemesia. "Oui, Madame?"

"There's something important I have to tell you." As she explained the new rules, Artemesia hoped the Mecha understood it all. Of course it could…

Babette's eyes went blank for a moment, as if they clouded over with thought. But they soon cleared.

"I hope you understand," Artemesia concluded.

"There is little to understand. I must only do what is asked."

At least Sidney didn't make fun of her today, Maddy realized with relief. She decided not to play with Sidney that day, but with another friend, Pratibha.

At 15.00, when school let out, Maddy ran to the hall to where Babette usually stood waiting for her. She had a good day to tell her all about.

No Babette stood by the door.

She almost started crying, but the door opened and a soft figure stepped through.

"Babette!" Maddy cried, running to meet her friend.

"I am here, Maddy," Babette said, stooping down and gathering Maddy into a big hug.

For the moment, Maddy set aside her fear. But once they left the school and were well away from the building, she looked up at Babette.

"Why weren't you there when I came out?" she asked.

Babette paused and got down to Maddy's level. "You Maman told me I could not wait for you at the school."

"Why not?"

A blankly sad look passed over Babette's face. "I do not know; it is something I cannot understand. You will have to ask your Maman to explain."

Maddy wondered if it had anything to do with Sidney and the girls who had rolled her in the mud. She decided then and there she would never, ever, EVER play with Sidney again, just for that.

But she and the robot-woman soon adapted to the new rules they could not comprehend; yet another of the mysteries of big people. And Orgas.

The season passed. Fall's rains gave way to winter's snow squalls and spring's renewed rains and lush flowers.

Just after Maddy finished first grade, a call came from Nairobi to Artemesia's office, from the excavation team Emil was working with.

That night, Artemesia—Mommy—came home from work very early. She even came right up to the nursery, where Maddy and Babette were busy building a princess castle with blocks.

Artemesia sat on the floor close to her daughter, near the sprawling little edifice already in progress. "Maddy," she said. "I have something very important to tell you. It's about Daddy."

"Is he coming home?" Maddy had only very dim memories of her Daddy.

"Yes. He's been very sick, and he's coming home to get better."

"When's he coming home?"

"He should be home tomorrow morning."

The next morning, Babette bathed Maddy and put the little girl's hair up in a French braid. After breakfast, Artemesia drove them to the hyperjet terminal.

Artemesia almost didn't Emil when she first saw him. His dark blond hair had receded slightly and started to turn gray. His hooded gray eyes looked sunken and his face looked drawn. He'd had a powerful if slight physique, but that had started to run to fat, one of the effects of his illness, which had damaged his thyroid, according to the doctor who had called.

He smiled when he saw them, but the tired look did not leave his eyes. He limped to meet them; an old injury had left him with a slight hobble, but he usually took care to avoid walking crookedly.

"Welcome home," she said, embracing him.

"You look great; did you miss me?" he asked. He kissed her on the ear.

"No," she teased. He slapped her playfully.

Maddy ran up to her Daddy. "Now who is this beautiful young lady?" he asked, mock-quizzically. He let Artemesia go.

"I'm your little girl. I'm Maddy," she said, her lower lip thrust out slightly.

"Of course you are," he said, scooping her up. "I'd know you anywhere. I was just kidding you." He turned and eyed Babette. His brow furrowed. "Who's this?"

"This is Babette," Artemesia said. "She's Maddy's nanny."

"She's Mecha," he said in a low voice.

"She's wonderful with Maddy."

Artemesia took a few days off from work, reacquainting herself with this man she had married.

The doctors had told Emil he would probably never again have the strength to go out on expeditions. He had consequently decided to start writing his memoirs to bide his time until a job offer from a museum in Chicago, as a cataloguer, came through.

"It's not the big things you really have to worry about, you can often see them coming," Emil said, sitting by their bedroom window one night. "Except maybe earthquakes, but the seismologists are getting better at predicting them. It's the little tiny things that you really have to look out for."

"Little things like what?" Artemesia asked, making up the bed.

"Disease-carrying parasites," he said with a sour smile.

"Is that how you got sick?" she asked.

"Unboiled water. I was hasty. The old saying came true: Haste makes waste."

"At least you survived it."

He turned away from the window and joined her in bed. "But there's one big thing I'm concerned about. What's with the nanny-Mecha? I thought we agreed to keep Maddy's exposure to Mecha down to a minimum? Isn't Gussie enough? What happened to Falice?"

"I had trouble with her: I wrote to you about it."

"I must not have got that message."

"She wouldn't follow the house rules, and twice, she invited her boyfriend over when I was out. Gussie isn't really programmed to mind children. Babette's wonderful with Maddy. She's practically human. Once you get to know her, you'll be amazed."

"And I suppose I'd like her too," he drawled.

"Maddy's happy with her, and that's all that matters."

Artemesia also entrusted Babette with keeping a discreet eye on Emil when she was not tending Maddy, who was away at camp now, her first summer. She had objected nosily to the separation from Babette, but Artemesia had gently reminded her of the incident at school that last year.

He wasn't supposed to because of the medication he was on, but Emil kept a bottle of bourbon in the deep bottom drawer of the desk in his study while he worked. He took it out after he'd been working for three hours that morning.

"Monsieur, you are not allowed to drink alcohol," said a soft voice behind him.

He set his glass on his desktop and turned his chair around. That nanny-Mecha stood there in the doorway, looking at him with her soft, silly expression.

"How long have you been standing there?" he demanded.

"Thirty minutes and seven seconds, Monsieur."

"Well, you can just got away. You're supposed to mind Maddy; I'm a big boy."

The Mecha smiled her fey smile and went away. At least these things couldn't object, at least humans still dominated by word and by species.

That night, Artemesia questioned Babette about Emil.

"Monsieur took his medication, but he was drinking later this morning," Babette said.

"Anything more?"

"No. He worked at writing through the day.

Artemesia broached the problem later to him.

"I just don't want you to have some drug interaction," she argued.

"I was just one drink; I'll be all right," he said. He eyed her askance. "You put that Mecha up to this, didn't you?"

"You haven't been well. I just want you to be all right."

"Well, I don't need the likes of that thing spying on me. Maddy's one thing, but I don't need supervision, especially from that…thing."

She relented. At times, she wished somehow Babette could have gone with Maddy, but it would only cause more friction.

She changed her instructions to Babette next morning. The Mecha-woman took them with her usual patient sweetness.

Now that she wasn't looking after Maddy, Babette still made herself useful, helping Gussie with the housework. But she avoided the study if Monsieur was working there. He would not want her there and she had explicit orders from Madame.

A few of Emil's friends in the field dropped in to visit from time to time, to check on his recovery and see how he was progressing with the book. This afforded him a chance to sneak in a social drink or two; he'd cut back to palliate Artemesia, but he soon had slipped back to his old ways.

He was artful in finding ways to hide his private indulging, but Artemesia somehow knew when he'd been at the bottle again. She had to find ways to monitor him without interfering. She'd searched his desk drawers when he wasn't looking, but she didn't find anything.

She told Babette to clean in his study even when Monsieur was there and to report to her on anything unusual.

Babette could only oblige; she knew no other response but obedience.

The next day, as Emil reached for the Greek amphora he kept on a bookshelf by the desk, Babette came in with her sweeper.

"Hey, I really can't be disturbed," he said. "Can't you sweep later?"

The Mecha stopped sweeping and looked up. "Madame asked me to clean in here today."

"Oh, she did, did she? Well, I'm sorry, but I can't let you do that."

"I must, Monsieur."

He realized Artemesia must have told this thing to ignore his protestations. In a sense, she'd ordered the thing to go over his head.

"This is my study. I want you to get out of here and clean somewhere else."

"Monsieur, I have my orders from Madame."

He stood up to his full height and looked down at her. "Babette, get out."

"Monsieur, I cannot."

Before he knew what he was doing, he swung his flat hand and struck the Mecha's face. She stepped rather than staggered back from the blow. Without looking at him, she walked quickly from the room.

He hoped that made her reprocess those orders, if she could do that. That would keep her in her place as a servant. Since when did the servants order their masters? He didn't really like resorting to blows, but sometimes that was the only thing that worked. If the universal sign of dominance didn't work, what would keep these things down?

"He struck you?!" Artemesia repeated. "Where did he strike you?"

"He struck my cheek," Babette replied, a simple statement of fact, free from complaint.

Artemesia had seen caution on Babette's tranquil face when Emil had hobbled past her in the hallway and found it odd; now she understood why.

Later that night, when Emil came up to their room, Artemesia met him at the door and barred his entrance.

"What's this for?" he asked.

"You hit Babette."

"She's only a machine. It's not like I could hurt her."

"You could damage her, but that's not the point."

"She came into my study and she wouldn't leave after I asked her. How was I to concentrate on my writing with her puttering around?"

"You're using that as an excuse; you were drinking again, weren't you?"

"I had a drink just to settle my nerves."

"You know you can't drink."

"One drink won't kill me. Besides, you can't use a Mecha to spy on me."

"If you'd stay away from the alcohol, I wouldn't feel obliged to protect your health."

"Using a Mecha to keep an eye on me." He glared at her. "Who did you get this thing to look after, Maddy or me?"

He turned away from the door and went to sleep in the study. To spite Artemesia, he took a nip to help himself sleep.

Two weeks before Maddy came home, Artemesia had to go away on business for a week. The first day, Emil barricaded himself in the study with a chair braced under the knob as his first line of defense. He had another line of defense: showing his fist.

The second day, something came in his email to disrupt his writing: he'd gotten the cataloguing job. "The cat's away, so let the rats play," he murmured, reaching for the amphora and pouring a drink for himself.

The knob rattled at that moment. He ignored it. The chair tipped up on its legs. The door opened, pushing the chair across the floor.

"Monsieur, may I sweep I here?" that sugary little voice asked.

"Get out of here!" he snarled. That Mecha stepped into the room with the sweeper. He hurled his empty glass at her. She did not flinch; the glass struck the side of her head. She stepped back, out of the room and ran away.

For a moment part of his mind wondered if the glass had damaged something inside her. All the better, thought another part of his nature. If she malfunctioned, maybe that would be the best way to get the wretched thing out of the house.

He made a few phone calls, inviting some of his old friends and colleagues for an informal dinner party the following evening. He had to celebrate, share the news with the others.

He called Artemesia later that evening. She had to share his good fortune too. The whole time they talked together, he could hear her thinking, 'It'll get you out of the house'. Come to think of it, this would get him out from under the innocent, prying little eyes of Artemesia's mechanical spy in the frilled white dress and apron.

He instructed Gussie about the menu for the gathering the following evening, and he ordered Babette to help Gussie. That would keep her off his back.

He'd only invited a handful: Rollard and his girlfriend, Jarrek the paleontologist, Karpi the anthropologist, and his wife and colleague Athene. But when they arrived, Athene had brought along her college roommate Sondra Klip, whom Emil had dated. He'd stopped seeing her only when she'd gone on to pursue less intellectual endeavors such as fashion design. She'd done well in her field to guess from the expensive-looking young man she had for an escort. At first glance, Emil thought she had some up and coming young male model on her arm, but once her companion stepped into the light, he noticed something different: the young fellow's dark hair seemed a little too well-brushed back, and the sheen of his skin didn't look quite natural, unless he was taking a awful lot of Vitamin E. The eyes gave it away for what it was: no one eye's were that clear a shade of green and they had that vacuous look typical of Mechas.

Emil had asked Rollard to bring along some extra wine; Artemesia had a virtual palm lock keyed only to her hand on the household account, so Emil had been unable to buy any extra for his guests. Oh well, it was an informal gathering; they knew what a skinflint Artemesia could be.

And the party grew increasingly informal as the guests drank freely of Rollard's donations. Back in the kitchen, helping Gussie with the dishes, Babette heard sounds Madame might not approve of. She had to report to Madame on Monsieur's activity; doubtlessly this was part of it. She had to go find out, but she had to finish with these dishes.

When she had finished, she went out into the hallway in search of Monsieur, listening for his voice. At length, her auditory receptors picked it up in the near distance. She followed it, around the corner of the corridor.

She found Monsieur standing with a strange woman, kissing her as she had seen him kiss Madame.

This was not right: he was Madame's husband.

"Monsieur?"

Emil loosely released Sondra and looked over his shoulder. There was that wretched Mecha…again.

"Emil, who's this?" Sondra asked, giggling.

"Just the nanny-Mecha Artemesia got for Maddy, without consulting me," he said, letting her go. "You go on, I'll catch up." 

He dragged Babette around the corner, his hand clenching her shoulder. Once out of earshot, he spun her around to face him.

"You stay out of my way, especially when I have guests," he snarled.

"Monsieur, have you been drinking again?" Babette's eyes scanned up and down his face, her head rising and lowering with them.

"That's none of your business!"

"But Madame has asked me to—"

"None of that!" He gripped her face. Gad, her skin and the structures under it felt real, nice trick of the designers. "_I_ am the master of this house, _you_ are just a Mecha. I give you orders; you obey them. Got it?"

"I hear your words. But Madame—"

"Shut up!" he rasped and swung her by the chin into the wall. The crack of the side of her head hitting the stucco wall sounded real. The bland look in her eyes vanished for a second. He rammed her into the opposite wall, wondering if she could feel anything. Her lips parted but she made no outcry.

 He let her go. "Forget whatever Madame says. Stay out of my way." With a parting slap across the face, he hobbled away to find Sondra.

The blow staggered her. Though her equilibrium moderator was designed to help her balance better than an Orga could, she tottered and fell against the wall. The pain receptors in her head kept firing.

She heard a man's footsteps in the hallway. Monsieur's? Had he come back? Would he apologize or would he do more hurt? But these steps sounded differently, more even, lacking Monsieur's slight limp.

A tall man in a long black jacket appeared around the corner, looking about with pale green eyes. He looked at her, approached where she lay and knelt gracefully beside her.

"Are you troubled?" he asked in a melodious voice. "Are you hurt?"

"I do not know. I only did what Madame asked me to do," she replied.

"And what did Madame asked you to do?"

"She asked me to watch Monsieur, to see that he did not drink while she was away from home, so the alcohol would not react with his medicine."

He reached out both his hands to her and gently took her hands by the wrists. His hands felt so soft and yet so strong. He stood up slowly, lifting her with him.

"You only did what you were ordered to do, and for this you were rewarded with a blow," he said, his face close to hers. Her eyes scanned his face and she understood he was not as most men, not like Monsieur and his friends, that he was different, the way she was different.

For a split second, his bright eyes lost their gently caressing look and gave way to a momentary blankness. She knew then he had seen it also.

He held her face in his hands, his eyes scanning her face as she scanned his.

"I do not understand," she said at length.

"What do you not understand? Why your Monsieur treated you so?"

"_Oui_."

The stranger with the bright eyes was silent before he spoke again. "He harmed you because you mean nothing to him. We really mean nothing to them. We exist merely to serve them and their needs. But someday, perhaps, they will learn better, that our only differences lie in our construction."

She could not understand what he meant by all this, but his voice caressed her auditory receptors. She smiled up at him.

"Now where would you be if you were not here?"

"I would be up in the nursery."

"Let me come with you, to see not further harm befalls you," he said.

"_Merci_."

She let him take her arm and she led the way upstairs to the nursery. As they reached the door, another strange woman stepped out of the shadows.

"Oh there you are. Are you hidin' on us, Joe?" she asked.

"I did not attempt to conceal myself, but I did encounter a damsel in distress," the bright-eyed stranger replied.

"Well, couldja rescue another damsel who's distressed?"

"Not without first bidding the first damsel a fitting farewell," he replied. He turned back to Babette and leaning down, kissed her gently on her cheek. He turned away and accompanied the disheveled woman down the stairs.

So much had happened, Babette hardly noticed that her pain receptors still fired under her scalp, but somehow that mattered little. She went into the nursery.

Fortunately, Emil could mask his mild hangover as part of his usual aches and pains. Thankfully, Babette kept out of his way and Gussie cleared up the remains of the party.

Artemesia arrived home around noon. He kept a modest profile as he went downstairs to meet her at the door.

"I couldn't wait to get home," she said, once she got in. "I almost took a flight out last night, but I met up with some old friends."

_Thank heavens_, he thought.

"I'm happy for you, but what about your health? Do you think you can handle it?"

"I'll take it one day at a time and see how it works. If I end up having problems, I'll just have to find something less intense, or maybe just settle on finishing my memoirs."

He helped her carry her bags upstairs, chatting with her about this and that, anything to keep her from going to check in with that Mecha. He just hoped his rough handling had damaged the object's memory centers so she couldn't recall what had happened the night before.

After lunch, while Emil took a rest, Artemesia went to the nursery to speak to Babette.

She found the little Mecha-woman sitting in her place in the rocking chair by the window.

"So how did Monsieur behave while I was gone," Artemesia asked. She bit her tongue for phrasing it this way.

The Mecha related something about how Emil had invited a few guests last night. That much hardly surprised Artemesia, but it progressed.

 "He kissed on the lips one of the women guests. I told him he should not kiss so any but you, Madame. He struck my head."

Artemesia stared in disbelief. Emil could get loud when he had had a few, but this was new. She wondered if these machines could fabricate…but no, they were artificially intelligent, but they weren't smart enough to lie. It defied their logic parameters, unless they had been fed misinformation. That couldn't be.

"Thank you, Babette."

"Indeed, Madame." Artemesia rose on legs that barely obeyed her own internal command.

She went to the bedroom. Emil lay on the bed, drowsing, eyes closed. She decided to wait until later, when he was more alert.

That evening, after supper, after Babette had cleared the table, Artemesia broached the subject to Emil.

"Babette says you struck her over the head."

Emil lit a cigarette, a rare luxury Artemesia permitted less grudgingly. "What?"

"She also said you were fooling around with a strange woman."

"She was mistaken. I had a few friends for dinner last night, and I was merely saying good night to her." His eyes showed clear. She decided he was telling the truth. Babette could be mistaken; she was programmed to keep wayward children in line and their behavior was easier to interpret.

"But she said you struck her."

"She got in my way and she wouldn't move. I was tired, so I'll admit I got a little harsh with her. But I didn't do anything to damage her." His eyes had shifted to the left as he spoke. Was he telling the truth?

There was only one way to tell for sure, and that was to have Babette's memory scanned.

"It's her word against yours," she said, grimly.

He didn't like the sound of that, as if he were a naughty child and the Mecha were a responsible adult.

Next day, Artemesia called Serve US to arrange for an enquiry scan of Babette's memory banks, but the soonest she could arrange for one was a week later, after Maddy came back from camp. Maddy would object to the separation, but maybe she would take it better now that she had been away from the Mecha for so long.

Emil played it safe for a few days; he couldn't hazard a drink just yet, but if he couldn't go too long without getting the shakes. He reached for the amphora one afternoon. The door opened behind him. He knew who it was.

Babette came up to him and put her hand on his wrist.

"Did Madame tell you to put your hand on my arm?" he demanded.

"_Oui_, Monsieur, she wants only your welfare and health."

This was the last straw. He tried to shake her off, but her grip was incredible. Gad, did she ever do this to Maddy?! He took the amphora from his hand. She let him go and started to reach for the other hand, but he set down the jug before she could grasp him.

He grabbed it around the head and dragged it out the door and down the hall. He ripped a strip from its apron and tied the rag around its eyes as a blindfold. It made no struggle. The least he had expected was that it might try to break free, but this made things easier.

He led the thing out the back door and down the slope of the yard, deep into the woods behind the house, into the shadows under the trees. He led it far enough away that he could no longer hear the sounds of civilization, leading his captive on a zigzagging path so it couldn't get its bearings.

He plunked her on the ground behind a tree. "Stay there, you heap of silicon," he muttered. He stalked away, taking a circuitous route home so it could not hear which way he went and follow him back.

"_Oui_, Monsieur," she said.

To be continued…

Afterword:

Because of my tightened schedule, I divided this story into two halves, just to tide you folks over until I get the next load of stuff written. For that matter, I might even add Maddy (all grown up) to one of my other efforts, perhaps "Zenon Eyes: eyes of Truth", so—as always—stay tuned for lots more to come…

Literary Easter Eggs:

Babette's name—I borrowed this name from another of my favorite movies, _Babette's Feast_, a quiet but beautiful Danish-made film about a French cook who works for two spinster sisters in late19th century Denmark, and how, through a special meal for her employers and their friends, she wins the confidence and respect of the extremely suspicious villagers. I needed a French name, and this was the first one that came to mind (After my own first name, Renee, but since I often inject a certain amount of my own persona into the Mechas in my fictions, I was concerned this might be too obvious.).

The Joe cameo—Yes, to you members of Joe's Coterie of Happy Customers, that is our green-eyed love machine comforting Babette's wounded sensors. I based this little aside on the touching yet powerful scene in _Schindler's List_ where Schindler comforts Helena Hirsch (I'm just waiting for the day when some film analyst compares the man of list, as Spielberg portrayed him, with Our Silicon Hottie: they're both good-lookers who melt the hearts of females around them, they're both amoral types, and yet they both act altruistically at tense times, assuming an unexpected father role even though it ends up costing them dearly, one way or another).


	2. Abandoned

+J.M.J.+

Toys Out of the Attic

By "Matrix Refugee"

Author's Note:

I hope this one hasn't turned anyone off; it's actually one of my earlier efforts (post-"Zenon Eyes" tryptych, pre-"Runnin' Loose…") which I rediscovered recently and decided it was high time to get it off my hard drive, so if the writing seems a little weak compared to more recent efforts (e.g., "You Killed Me First", "Shadows Between the Neon") that could explain it. WARNING: this second half is even more sentimental than the last, especially the last dozen paragraphs or so, which are told exclusively from the Nanny-Mecha's viewpoint. She's a very simple robot, of course.

Disclaimer:

See Part I

II

Abandoned 

Babette stayed there under the tree all that day and into the night. She logicked that this might have something to do with the night Monsieur had hit her head, but she could not logic why this was so. Her pain receptors still fired under her scalp. Something was wrong, but she could not tell what precisely it was. A soft rain fell in the night; she sat under the tree, the drops that filtered through the branches felt cool on her skin receptors.

Maddy would arrive home after the sun rose: that much she knew. She had to go 'home' to be with her when Mademoiselle returned. The little one would be so 'sad' if she were not there.

Monsieur had ordered her to stay 'here', wherever 'here' was. Maddy's 'happiness' took more precedent over Monsieur's command. She got up and felt at the cloth Monsieur had tied about her eyes. She did not understand why he had put it there, but that did not matter now.

She took off the blindfold and looked around. Her eyes adjusted to night vision, a survival feature common to all Mecha. She looked around her, not knowing the way to go, seeing no clearly marked trails.

She walked straight ahead of her. She did not know where it lead, much less that it led into the center of the forest.

Night passed. The daylight returned. She kept walking tirelessly through the morning showers and mist. Her path lead her onto an old road, overgrown with bushes and vines, connecting the dead forgotten towns out in the wilds beyond the smug clumps of civilization. She followed this track, her feet noiseless on the moss and grass growing out of the cracks in the asphalt.

The sun broke through the clouds late in the day. Lizards that had crept out to sun themselves on the cracked pavement skittered away at her approach. An elderly gray possum trundling through the bushes snarled at her and waddled away into the undergrowth. On and on she walked, putting one foot in front of the other.

She walked till dusk and kept on walking even in the darkness. Animals approached her, but ignored her; to their noses, she smelled neither like a threat nor like prey. She smelled like nothing they knew.

She was alone but she did not feel loneliness; loneliness was something she had been constructed to alleviate, not sense. Her logic processors told her she had to return to Maddy. She heard movement rustle in the bushes, but she did not react. She would have only if Maddy was there.

Artemesia drove Maddy home from camp. Her little girl was as brown as an Indian and she seemed two inches taller. She chattered excitedly about everything she had done, all the friends she had made. She didn't mention Babette until they had almost reached the house.

"Babette will wanna hear about camp," Maddy said. "How is she?"

She couldn't tell her daughter about Emil hitting Babette. "Oh, she's been waiting for you." Artemesia changed the subject by telling her about how Daddy had got a new job nearby, so he wouldn't have to go away for years at a time, ever again.

Before Artemesia parked the cruiser in their driveway, Maddy had hit the switch for the door on her side; before Artemesia had switched off the motor, Maddy had bounced out onto the grass and ran up the path to the door. "Daddy! Babette! I'm home!"

Emil opened the front door and caught Maddy in his arms. "There's my big girl!" he cried. "Or are you some other girl who looks like her only taller?"

"Silly Daddy! It's me, it's Maddy." She wriggled from his arms and ran into the house. "Babette? Babette, I'm home!"

Maddy ran up the stairs and ran to the door of her room. "Babette?" she opened the door and ran into the room.

Babette's chair stood empty. Maddy ran to the bedroom. She wasn't there either. She ran to the bathroom. No Babette.

She ran down to the kitchen, nearly bumping into Mommy on the stairs. Maybe Babette was in the kitchen, helping Gussie the way she did sometimes.

She found Gussie patiently scrubbing the counters, but Babette was not there.

"Where's Babette?" Maddy asked.

Mommy came into the kitchen. "Maddy, have you seen Babette?" she asked.

"No, Mommy; I was gonna ask you."

Artemesia went to the study. Did Emil know anything about this? She found him typing on the ancient laptop he insisted on using.

"Emil, have you seen Babette?"

He only glanced up from his work. "Not lately."

"Why don't I believe you?" She bent down to his level to look him in the eye. "What do you know about this?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Where is Babette?"

"I have no idea." He turned back to the screen.

"You didn't just dump her somewhere, did you?"

"Don't be ridiculous."

"You did."

"I suppose if I did, you'd bite my head off because she wasn't paid for."

Artemesia pointed out the door. "Your daughter Maddy is going to be frantic without Babette."

He turned to her. "Maddy or you? You never asked me about getting that robot. You never wanted to know what I thought about having my little girl tended by that…that machine."

"Well, your little girl loves that machine, and she'll be beside herself when she finds out Babette is gone."

"So what do you want with me about it?"

"I want you to help me look for Babette."

He looked her full in the face. "Well then, you'll just have to go look for her yourself."

Babette was not entirely alone. Other eyes less accustomed to the night watched her, trying to determine what she was, one of their kind or another being.

They tracked her in case she might prove to be one of them: perhaps they could get her to turn out her pockets if she wouldn't give them any spare Newbucks. Or if she turned out to be otherwise, she might prove useful or lucrative.

One of the elder trackers recognized her as a nanny-Mecha. That might be good for the women-folk, but what had brought it out here? Was some upper-class child missing and it had joined the search? They'd seen no other signs in the woods to indicate this. How did the thing get out here, so far from the civilized?

Whatever brought it here, it was walking straight into their territory.

In the distance she saw lights. Perhaps they came form Madame's house. Perhaps she had found the path back to where Maddy waited, 'anxious'. But she would soothe her with songs and caresses. She walked a little faster. Maddy could not be left waiting.

She walked toward a circle of shacks in the woods, old houses half-fallen in from neglect shore up with stones and rough timbers. A large campfire burned in the middle of the circle. She heard children's voices, women's voices, the voices of the elderly around it.

Suddenly a tall figure lunged out of the shadows, holding something like a long metal stick.

"Who are you?" he demanded. "What are you doing here?"

"My name is Babette. I am just walking this road to go home to my Madame's house," she replied.

He looked at her and lowered the stick. "Oh, one of those, eh?"

More men approached from the depths of the woods.

"What the h--- is that?"

"Must be the Mecha-thing we saw in the woods."

"Well, what's it doin' here?"

"She says she's lookin' for her Madame's house," the watchman said.

"Well, she's come way in the wrong direction, no Madames here!" Raucous laughter met this remark.

"Hey, you, Mecha. Follow me," the largest man of the group ordered. She stepped obediently behind him as he walked into the circle of firelight. He did not grab her arm or even touch her, but she had to obey the voice of the human.

He led her to a large structure of somewhat sturdier construction than the rest of the buildings. She logicked this must be a 'barn'. The big man grabbed the handle of the door and pushing his weight against it, pushed it open. He stepped inside. "Come on, come in here," he ordered, beckoning with a vast gesture of his hand. She walked in after him.

Inside were piled al a manner of boxes and barrels of things. She logicked this must be where they kept things until they were needed, like a 'closet', only much bigger.

He pointed to a dusty corner behind some piled sacks full of something. "There. Stay there until we decide what to do with you." His voice sounded harsh, but he did not seem to mean her any harm. Monsieur's voice had remained gentle even as he hit her. She stepped into the corner. The big man went away. She heard the door close.

She stayed here through the night, untiring. She could stand for hours on end without needing to sit down or 'sleep'. She barely knew time. She understood the cycle of light and dark that made a day, and the coming and going of seasons, but these did not affect her functions.

Artemesia posted a missing Mecha report with the police and on the 'Net, but the people who best knew the Mecha's whereabouts had little to do with the technology that formed the backbone of civilization, some by choice, most by default.

Weeks passed, but Babette hardly noticed their passing except for the rhythm of light and dark. The pain receptors in her head still fired, but there was little she could do about it.

At length, one day, the door opened and a girl about Maddy's age, clad in a dress made out of rough cloth stitched together and clumsy shoes with wooden soles came in. other children, dressed just as clumsily, followed her in. 

"Okay, I'm 'it'," the first girl declared.

"You were 'it' the last time we played in here," said a tall girl, almost a woman to guess by her height. "I'll be 'it'."

"Oh, all right," the little girl grumbled.

The tall girl started counting. The smaller children scattered, finding hiding places among the boxes and bales. The small girl who had wanted to be 'it' scuttled into the corner where Babette sat.

The little girl stared at her. "Who are you?" she whispered.

"My name is Babette," she replied in a low voice. "What is your name, little girl?"

"I'm Sari, but you gotta be quiet."

"Ready or not, here I come!" the tall girl cried. She came around a stack of boxes and looked right at Babette.

"Who are you?" the girl demanded.

"I am Babette. What is your name?"

"I'm Charisse. How did you get here?"

"A man told me to sit here. I walked to this village after my master put me in a forest alone."

"You're Mecha."

Babette knew she was not the same as these children, but she could not fully process why there was a "troubled" sound in this girl's voice. "Does that make difference?"

"No, it's just that you're really not supposed to be here."

"Why am I not so?"

Charisse looked around. The other children rustled in their hiding places, clearly wondering what was taking so long.

"Because you're Mecha; we really don't use things like you."

"May I play with you and your friends?"

"Well," the girl looked around. "Yeah, but don't let the grown ups see you."

All that afternoon they played hide and seek in the barn, taking turns being 'it'. The younger ones loved it most when Babette was 'it': when she found them, she gave them a big, gentle hug.

They were just starting another game when a man walked in. the children knew him as Ryker, the head man of the village, but Babette knew him as the man who had sent her to stay in the barn.

"What's going on?" he demanded.

"We were just playing," Charisse said.

"All of you kids, out of here. You there, the Mecha, leave our kids alone," he snapped. The children filed out. Babette stayed in the spot where she stood.

"That was a little harsh. She wasn't doing anything to harm them," Serkin, Ryker's second in command said as they headed back to the shack where Ryker's family lived. He'd seen the whole incident from outside.

"We gotta keep the young 'uns from getting attached to that Mecha," Ryker said. "They gotta learn to be tough, not like _them_," meaning the folk in the towns and cities. "Besides, a Mecha like that could be worth something."

Serkin understood what Ryker meant. He himself had been unaccustomed to work before he came here. He might have come up in the ranks of the clan, but he would always be in some ways the soft-handed college dropout who had run away to the wilderness to evade the loan sharks he had gotten tangled with over his gambling debts.

"But they were out of trouble and it kept them out from underfoot for the womenfolk. She serves a purpose."

"Let the womenfolk handle that," Ryker snapped back. They'd had a bad day foraging and the kids playing with the Mecha was the last straw.

For the next few days, the children stayed away from the barn, but the little one, Sari, couldn't stop thinking of the strange lady she had found in the barn. And what was a Mecha?

She had to go to the barn and see who or what Babette was.

She found the strange lady sitting in the same corner where she had first found her.

"Hello, Sari," Babette said.

"Hi, Babette. I didn't want you to be lonely."

"I was not lonely; I had you to think of. Would you like to play?"

"No, I really shouldn't. I just wanted to be with you."

"Would you like me to tell you a story? I know many stories."

"Sure."

"Once upon a time…"

For the next hour, Sari sat in rapt attention at this strange creature's feet, listening to these wonders which her new friend revealed. In her life's daily struggle to stay alive, Sari had never heard of such things as princesses in castles or knights in shining armor coming to their rescue.

She sat so enraptured that she hardly heard the commotion outside.

"What is that sound?" Babette asked, becoming aware of it.

"I don't know," Sari said, scared, knowing what it was. She shrank against Babette.

The Mecha-woman drew the child close, into her corner, edging back behind a crate.

Someone threw open the door and stomped past them. They heard the stranger rummaging about. Sari peeked our from under Babette's arm without hardly moving. Someone stood before them, clad in strange green clothes. Sari knew it meant trouble. She sat absolutely still. The stranger went out.

"Anyone hiding in there?" asked a loud voice outside.

"No sir," someone replied.

The footsteps went away. Sari stayed still. Babette had not moved either. They did not move for quite some time.

But at length, Babette got up and peered out through a dingy window. She took Sari by the hand and led her out of the hiding place.

"Is it safe?" Sari asked.

"Yes, the bad men have gone." Babette led her outside.

The fire that burned in the center of the village had been stamped out and the half-charred logs scattered. The one street lay empty of all activity. Sari heard someone crying. She ran toward the sound, Babette following her.

Sari ran to the house her family shared with another. She found Mama and Aunt Vestia crying, holding each other.

"What happened? Why is everyone crying?" Sari asked.

Mama looked up. "Sari! Oh, thank God! Where were you?" she let go of the crying older woman and clasped Sari to her heart.

"I was in the barn with Babette."

Sari's mother, Iline looked up at the Mecha. "You hid her?"

"Oui, Madame. We heard the bad men coming, so I hid Sari."

Iline reached out and clasped the Mecha's hand. "You just saved my youngest child. Thank you."

"I did what she needed to have done for her."

Iline let the Mecha stay in the house. Ryker wouldn't like it, but she had to reward her—it?—for protecting Sari. If it wasn't for her, the population controllers would have confiscated Sari.

After Ryker and his men had come back from their foraging expedition, the word spread that the Mecha had saved his daughter.

Ryker was infuriated about the raid: their cover was blown; they'd have to move to the next shantytown. But his daughter had survived thanks, of all things, to the Mecha he'd picked up in the woods.

"It can stay. It can go where we go," he declared with resignation.

Babette helped the women pack their few bundles. She had packed bags before, when Maddy had gone to camp, so she relied on this data.

They left late at night, the older children carrying the few younger ones remaining. She carried Sari and a bundle while the men pulled a wagon containing the supplies for the journey.

They walked in single file over trails only the leaders at the head and foot of the column knew well.

At dawn they stopped and camped under the trees. During the day the adults took turns watching over the camp. At nightfall they set off again, avoiding populated areas and large roads.

After a week of this, they came to another cluster of small houses. The men of the group went in to see that no one had taken up lodging there in their absence. Fortunately, the only inhabitants were animals, which the men killed for the meat. But they also drove out other creatures, strange things like people with metal limbs. Some had faces like her own, but they were cracked and damaged. These departed at the men's orders, going deeper into the woods.

Babette helped the women resettle. She minded the few little ones left while their mothers cleaned out the shacks and set up housekeeping in them. The children quickly grew fond of Babette. After all, she had saved Sari; there had to be something good about her.

Even Ryker grew fond of Babette in a grudging way. His wife, Iline, didn't look so harried after a day of shooing the kids out from underfoot while she and the other women tried to make the shacks inhabitable.

Winter came. The older children had to help the men shore up the shacks against the rain and the snow between working in the nearby towns when they could get work.

Serkin, who had worked with Mechas as a student, tried to scare up spare energy cells for Babette. He knew she couldn't go on forever. Her skin was starting to weather from working outside. Her white dress was already in dingy rags that she herself mended when she was not tending the little ones. She wouldn't last, not without maintenance, any more than a human could last without proper care. He scrounged around in scrap heaps, hunting up damaged Mechas, looking for the right parts for her.

He took Babette's care into his own hands. Ryker snorted at the younger man's meticulous attention to the Mecha, and at times he coarsely teased Serkin about it. "More trinkets for your silicon sweetie?" he'd ask when Serkin brought back some working parts, but he left Serkin to his own devices.

Winter's snows passed into spring's soft rains. Between tending Babette, Serkin taught the children the basics of reading and math, the least they needed to get by in the world. Babette told them her stories, which counted as literature after a fashion.

In the summer, they moved again, heading into West Pennsylvania. Babette traveled with them. Ryker tried to sell her in one of the towns more than once, but Iline wouldn't hear of it and the kids put up such a racket that he was obliged to let the Mecha stay.

Babette's dress had long since fallen to shreds and she was obliged to wear a gray sacking dress like the women of the clan. Serkin found out the cause of her pain receptors' constant firing in her scalp: one of the titanium plates in her scalp had cracked and it cut into her skin. He tried to stitch the rend closed, but it only made it worse.

Her scalp gradually tore loose and the cracked plate fell off. He tried to find another scalp for her, but they were almost in the heart of civilization and good parts were hard to find. The Mecha factories in the area were careful about recycling components.

Over the next few years, Babette's skin started to come off in flakes, revealing the pulleys and metal infrastructure underneath. Only her face and hands survived, possibly made of tougher stuff. But the children loved her just the same, like a battered doll they could not give up. In essence, that was what she was. But she had become more than that. To the women, she was the ideal helper, giving them the time to rest or to hunt for food when the menfolk were busy, or to find the occasional odd job in the villages.

Babette watched the older children grow up and start families of their own. She helped tend the old and the ailing. She saw members of the tribe "die", this strange cessation of function that struck the Orgas and left an unseen hurt on the survivors. She helped the women tend the expectant mothers and with the birthing of the new little ones. 

The younger children never knew Babette as she had looked when she first came to the clan. As they grew, they thought nothing of her increasingly less human-like appearance. They learned, with time, that she was utterly different from them, that she was "Mecha", but it made little difference to them.

Ryker led the tribe further east, closer to where the pickings were better but cautiously avoiding the more populous centers. They moved across West Pennsylvania into East Pennsylvania and across a river into a place called New Jersey.

Then one day in winter, Serkin went into town to find work, but he never returned. Ryker told the clan Serkin had probably run off with some rich woman who had promised the young man an easier life, but he used this as a scrim for what probably had happened: the police had probably caught up with him.

Babette found this news puzzling. She knew he would not be with them any longer and that he was no longer there to help "fix" her, but no matter. She could manage somehow.

Spring returned. The days grew longer and warmer and the nights shorter. They could hear more activity in the town beyond the trees. The scavengers reported that something was going on, a carnival or something called a Flesh Fair.

This meant nothing to Babette. "Flesh" had to do with Orgas, and "Fair" could mean a carnival, but there was precious little room for "fun things" in the life of the shantytown dwellers. She did not question their "poverty" any more than she had questioned Madame's "wealth".

The daylight left the sky, and the dark took its place. Babette helped Iline cook supper for her grandchildren, no easy task for the Mecha-woman now since she had lost an arm recently.

Ryker came in, his face 'tired' after a long day trying to sell the junk he had collected in the woods. He eyed Babette a little oddly, but she knew better than to question the way he looked at her.

The night deepened. Babette put the little ones to bed. Saskia, the youngest, begged for "Cinderella", even though the older ones said it was "a baby story".

Once the little ones were asleep, Babette kept watch just outside the door to the nook the children shared.

Ryker sat outside the door to the shack, smoking his pipe and watching the sky above, the shadows below. He'd heard from the leader of another clan that the kid-catchers were around.

The sky grew lighter toward the east. Too fast. The moon never rose that fast. Ryker stood up.

It looked too big and it shone too bright. It wasn't the right shape, either: it looked too round, not like the slightly curved disk that it usually resembled. What the…?

Whatever it was, it was coming right for them. He'd heard other clan leaders tell of this thing, but he'd never believed them.

A round metal platform hung from the bottom of the glowing sphere of the false moon, bristling with spotlights and equipment manned by a cluster of men. Below that hung a metal basket like a large cage.

"Any old iron?" a voice with a thick brogue boomed through a tinny loudspeaker. "Any old iron? …Render your Mecha…Purge yourself of artificiality!"

That didn't sound like the Feds and the bounty hunters wouldn't use such wild equipment. It had to be the Flesh Fair. He'd heard tell of shantytowns that had been turned upside down and torn apart by the Hounds, the out-riders who rounded up any stray Mechas they found. And he'd heard talk of a man, a wanderer like himself, who fallen afoul of the hellhounds and been captured.

He looked at Babette. The thing didn't stand a chance here and he couldn't risk his family.

"John, what's that outside?" Iline asked, coming to his side.

"It's the Flesh Fair," he said. "They're looking for junk Mechas." He looked at Babette.

Iline set her mouth in a straight line. "You can't send her out there."

"She can't stay in here, they'll tear the place apart. Besides, she's falling to pieces."

At that point, Saskia came out of the sleeping nook at the rear of the shack. "Daddy, what's all the bright lights?" she asked.

What timing. "Sassi, go back to bed; it's just…just the moon."

"It's too bright; it's keeping me awake."

Babette got up and knelt down to Saskia. "May I take you back to bed?"

"No, Babette, you can't." He'd heard motors revving and roaring in the near distance outside. Dang, here come the hounds. "Iline, take Saskia to bed."

"No, I want Babette!" Saskia insisted.

Iline intervened. "Daddy has to take care of Babette for a minute."

"Okay." Saskia put her hand in her mother's.

Once they had gone, Ryker took Babette by her one arm and led her outside, away from the shacks and disused railroad cars, deep into the woods.

"What do you want of me, Monsieur?" Babette asked.

"Just go," he ordered, his voice shaking. "Go, Babette! They'll get us if you don't GO!"

"As you wish."

He pushed her toward the trees and ran back to the shacks.

She looked about her and started walking deeper into the shadows.

She heard footsteps around her, running. Shadowy figures hurried past her through the gloom. She wondered where they were going. Why were they running? She followed them, running as well, trying to catch up with them.

At length they came to another clearing near the remains of an old rail station. She stopped running, paused, looked about. She walked slowly, scanning about her.

Motors whirred and snarled; she saw strange forms rushing through the underbrush. She looked about for shelter and spied a tumbledown shed. She ran toward it.

She found that others had taken shelter there, other people, but she soon realized they were like her, metal people, some missing hands and arms and legs, one lacked part of the whole left side of his head.

Lights played over the building, shining through the cracks and gaps in the old walls. She stepped back among the others, out of the reach of the beams of light.

A little boy ran into the shelter, a Teddy Supertoy at his side. The boy seemed lost. She saw fear on his small face. He ran into the shadow and brushed against her. He started back, looking up at her.

"What's your name, little boy?" she asked.

"My name is David," he replied, some of the fear leaving his face.

"Hello, David," she said. "How old are you?"

"I don't know."

He was "shy" she guessed. Perhaps, like the children of the shanties, he had never had a "birthday".

She leaned down to his level. "Do you need someone to take care of you? Like a nanny? I have many good references."

He looked up at her, his eyes growing excited. "Do you know where the Blue Fairy lives?" he asked.

She knew a fairy tale about a little wooden boy and a blue fairy who made him into a real, live boy. She was ready to tell him the story, but the lights pierced the wall.

Something on wheels no taller than a man broke through the flimsy wall. A huge net fell over them. Other things on wheels with men riding on their backs poured into the shack. They bundled the ends of the net together and pulled.

The metal people fell against her. She held David with her one arm, covering him as the nasty men dragged the net from the shack.

The net suddenly rose, but not before the little bear lunged and clung to the mesh. David clutched at the bear's little paw. But she saw the little creature drop. She soothed David, singing to him the lullaby Maddy had loved to hear.

"_Do, do, l'enfant, do,_" Sleep, sleep. Sleep, my child… He settled against her arm but she still felt fear stiffen his small spine.

At length, the net stopped moving; they hung over an open place surrounded by tiers of benches, like a 'circus' without the tent to cover it. The net lowered to the ground with a hard bump. David let out a small cry; Babette held him. Not to fear, little one. 

The net fell away from them. Perhaps the bad men would let them go. Perhaps they had made a mistake.

Instead, tall men in black shirts and pants grabbed Babette and David from the cluster of metal people. They dragged them toward a large structure all of black metal bars like a cage. The men unlocked a door in it and led them inside, down a corridor of metal bars to a room made all of the same black metal bars. David clung to her hand even though the men tried to pull them apart.

"Let go of him!" one of the men ordered, hitting her arm. Her grip released, but David clung to her arm with both hands.

The bad men dragged the other metal people into the cage. They meant little to her, but she saw one figure she recognized.

He looked like the handsome stranger who had spoken to her gently the night Monsieur Emil had struck her over the head, but perhaps this stranger merely looked like the kind one. But no, his eyes were the same, just as bright, so bright that they almost lit the dark of the cage.

A tall, heavy-set man with a floppy-brimmed black hat on his head approached the cage, outside the bars. He looked in at them with small, cold eyes. One of the men in black accompanied him.

 "We only got maybe a dozen, give or take a few. And that's including the lover model," the man in the black shirt said.

"Slim pickin's this toime, and we have a good crowd waitin' outsoide," the man in the black hat said. "But there's ways to make even a little go a lawng way."

The two men moved on. Other men in strange black and silver costumes had climbed onto the clear ceiling of the cage. They started playing strange noise instruments. Was that music?

Outside, people had started to gather on the tiers of seats. They shouted and threw things at the cage. What naughty people, she thought; they must never have been disciplined well.

At length the "music" stopped overhead. The man in the black hat walked to the center of the ring and spoke to the crowd in a loud voice that carried all throughout the space.

Then the men in black clothes came into the cage. They took one of the other metal people, one with a dark face.

"Hey, I didn't know it was my turn to go first," the metal man said as the men in black carried him out

The crowd of people got noisier, then suddenly there was an awful sound, like an explosion.

Something on fire hit the bars of the cage, stuck there for a moment, then slowly slid down the bars. It was the dark face of the metal man.

David let go of Babette's skirt. She couldn't reach for him since he was on the side where she lacked an arm. His hand reached out and grasped the hand of the bright-eyed stranger. The other looked down at David, his eyes puzzled, but she smiled at them both.

The noisy music started up again above them, then after too long a time, it stopped. She heard a woman shouting something to the crowd, something about "life" and a "human future". The crowd started shouting again.

Something small and furry crept up to the cage. David let go of the bright-eyed stranger's hand and reached out to the furry thing, his Teddy, Babette realized, but a little girl ran up and grabbed it. Perhaps it was hers and it had gotten away. David clung to Babette's one arm again.

The little girl looked up at David for a long moment, then she went away. Perhaps she would get help and get David out of this place.

The nasty men came back again and took away another of the metal people. One of them grabbed at David.

"Not that one!" someone yelled outside the cage. The man holding David let him go; David grabbed the hand of the bright-eyed one again. Babette did not mind. She knew this one.

Another man in a plaid-patterned shirt came to the cage, holding something in his hand. The little girl was with him. Good girl! Babette thought. She had got help.

The man turned the thing on and ran a light over David's face and body. Babette noticed a change: she could see his inside under his skin. She had seen pictures once of the inside of the arm of the child of a family she had worked for long ago, but David's inside looked nothing like this. He looked like the Teddy in the little girl's arms did.

He was like her…

The man with the scanning thing went away. Some time later, when the crowd was getting noisier again, he came back with the man in the black hat. She heard them talking, but there was too much noise for her to make out the words. Perhaps they were going to get David out of that awful place. As they came in, she stepped forward, trying to tell them to take David away and find his home.

But the men in the black clothes came into the cage behind them. They took her by the one arm and started to lead her away, Babette reached out to David, who smiled up at her.

"Let her go," the man in the plaid shirt told her.

"Goodbye, David," she said.

She smiled gently at David even as the men in black led her out of the cage. She looked back in reassurance as they dragged her to the sawdust ring. He stared after her, his little face a wide-eyed knot of fear and confusion and sadness as he clung to the bars, the two men still arguing over him. She smiled at him, still watching him. His hands went slack on the bars; one hand groped around and gripped the first larger hand it found, the hand of the bright-eyed stranger. Yes, David would be safe with him: the bright-eyed one knew "kindness".

He smile faded a little as the men in black chained her to a round metal disk with white lights around the edge. But she looked at David and smiled to him. _Don't be afraid, these men will soon see their mistake_, she wanted to say. _They will let you go._

The crowd began to hurl little red things, like beanbags, at the lighted targets around her head. She glanced up trying to find what was the meaning of this. But she looked back to the little one.

And then something wet fell over her, something that ate into what remained of her silicon flesh and into the metal frame underneath. Most of her pain receptors had failed long ago, so she hardly felt it.

Even as her awareness snapped and shorted out, she still smiled to David, reassuring him. The last image on her visual matrix was of David, clinging to the arm of the bright-eyed one…

The End

Afterword:

I hope that wasn't too much of a downer ending. I'm inviting all the other Mecha-huggers out there to take part in an online anthology of fanfictions dealing with different supporting characters and aspects of the "A.I." universe; I may even create a web page classing all pre-existing fanfics according to characters/themes/etc (As soon as I figure out how to build web pages!). This is my offering thus far. I may do more, but please, folks, I'm only one person; I need you to help me out by posting 'em here on ff.n for now.

Literary Easter Eggs:

"moss and grass growing out of the cracks in the asphalt."—Swiped this detail from Walker Percy's excellent post-apocalyptic novel _Love in the Ruins_, in which much of America has given way to wasteland, and humanity lives teetering on the edge of moral bankruptcy, but not the kind of bankruptcy you may be thinking of...

The raid in the shantytown by the kid-catchers—I based this on the ghetto massacre in _Schindler's List_.


End file.
